


with just a couple seconds

by jasminetea



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Alas Damien has no game, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Seduction, Banter, Damien's passive ability to know what other people want, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, F/M, Forced Intimacy, Hand Feeding, I Can't Believe There's No Noncon, Joan suffers no assholes, Light Dom/sub, Light Femdom, Massage, Mental Coercion, Mind Control, Missing Scene, POV Female Character, Power Dynamics, Secret Santa, The Bright Sessions Secret Santa, Training, Unresolved Sexual Tension, What "We've been practicing" could've meant, thirst traps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-23 20:39:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17087357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasminetea/pseuds/jasminetea
Summary: “Damien, you don’t want to be one of the AM’s. Especially, since you can barely stand being one of mine.”The look that crosses his face surprises her.  Hungry, predatory in a way different than his usual mock-petty-criminality.  Desperate, almost.Interesting.A series of moments leading up to a different decision at Zero Hour.





	1. with just a couple seconds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [radioqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radioqueen/gifts).



> I’ve tagged more cautiously than I think I needed to, given tagging “enthusiastic consent* some limitations may apply” wasn’t quite right.
> 
> Radioqueen, thanks for being you. <3

### Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Damien barges into her office shortly after Chloe leaves. His unusual amount of interest in Chloe’s ability has her wary about where that fascination might lead. Chloe did not need Damien darkening her doorstep, and Vanessa would wipe the floor with him.

She’s a little relieved when he returns his interest to the AM, but it’s still a subject she’d rather he not delve into.

“I also know you’re not working alone. And that… well, that intrigues me more than anything.” Of course it would. Damien’s tried to learn everything about her across their what… 30? 31? sessions. Favorite color, favorite memory, why are you sad?, who is Mark?, who did you say you were working for again?

“Damien, the AM are none of your concern. And you certainly don’t want to be one of theirs,” she replies.

With his ability, the AM would use and then destroy him. And even someone like him didn’t deserve that. But more importantly, his personality and Ellie’s ambition would be a disastrous combination, like water on a grease fire. He’d driven her to drinking on work nights, and he’d certainly drive Ellie to do something stupid when she couldn’t give him what he wanted.

Damien was a pain in the ass as it was, and he _wanted_ to be here, in Joan’s office. Although he purported to be there out of boredom, she still thinks he’s here for an even baser need, companionship. He felt he was all alone in the world, even if he had his own hand in that. And these moments with a “therapist” were the closest he could get to admitting he needed help.

“Especially,” she adds, “since you can barely stand being one of mine.”

The look that crosses his face surprises her. Hungry, predatory in a way different than his usual mock-petty-criminality. Desperate, almost.

Interesting.

“Oh? And what do you mean by _that?”_

She feels the press of his ability against her mind, a hot and dry wind behind her ears. Resisting him required knowing herself with a thoroughness that eluded most people; the ability to constantly question her actions; and regardless of her desire, ascertain if she’d normally feel this way. It was dizzying and took tremendous amounts of concentration to do constantly. She’d gotten attuned to the feel of his power, a pulse of sensory input that didn’t match her surroundings. And that was her cue to take stock of what her thoughts currently were and figure out if they matched her sense of self – it was like playing a game of _which of these doesn’t belong_?

This time, it’s like he’s rearranging the furniture and décor of her home and trying to convince her it’s much better _his_ way instead of hers. Of course, Damien wouldn’t be able to resist an insult to himself. Good, keep him distracted from the AM.

She’s unable to keep the displeasure out of her voice. “You pretend to be one of my patients, but you have no interest in my skill set. You show up without making an appointment, showing you don’t respect my time. You don’t pay, showing you don’t respect the fact my time is valuable and should be compensated. And yet I still try to help you, but you only give me flippant and disingenuous answers. What part of that says you _want_ to be one of my patients?”

“Who says I want to be your _patient_?” he sneers.

His desire for connection was genuine, but he didn’t know how to go about it with a woman without resorting to sexist notions of romance. She’d feel sorry for him if he actually showed an interest in changing.

The moment drags out between them. Damien eyes her desk like he can see her legs right through it, but she can tell it’s a habitual mask on his face more than anything else. It’s always telling when the pressure of his mind lets up, and it’s notably absent here, just like when he doesn’t force her to answer questions about what kind of information she gives to the AM.

Eventually, Joan’s silence wins out. (One of the few times it could, with his power roiling at the outside of her mind, but not penetrating it.)

“So tell me all about your ‘non-profit science firm,’” he says.

Once their session concludes, she tucks this moment away. She doesn’t know how to use it, but perhaps she might need it someday. She makes a private voice note recounting the moments that’d stretched between them, filled with something other than annoyance or arrogance.

Potential, there had been potential there. For what, she isn’t sure, but with Damien, it was always better to be prepared.

### Saturday, June 18, 2016

Joan’s on her living room coach watching the 1995 version of _Pride and Prejudice,_ when she realizes how to bring Mark back into the present day. She hastily sets down her bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream and dials Sam.

Joan continues watching Colin Firth arising from the pond with his wet shirt as she explains to Sam about time, dimensions, bubbles, and the conductive nature of water. Sam’s loneliness and desperate chance at love making her an easy sell.

So, getting Mark out of 1810 could be done. Getting him out of the AM though…

The high of finally solving one problem fades as she focuses on the next one. There’s only one person who has the skill set necessary to walk into the AM and get Mark out, and Damien would be a much harder sell. There has to be something that could entice him other than a carte blanche from her.

She grabs the ice cream and takes it to her desk. She’s not in the habit of bringing home many of her work files, but she does keep some private notes, especially ones she doesn’t want the AM finding, including those on Damien.

Taking a bite to steel herself, she begins flipping through her notes. She has a lot of work to do before she called him.

* * *

Of course, Damien doesn’t make the conversation easy.

“So once again I ask, what are you offering?” Damien growls. And hell if this doesn’t rival some of the more heated conversations she’s had with Ellie, where every word felt like a carefully coordinated chess game, one that could either knock her pawn off the board or queen her.

(Thrilling. It’d been thrilling.)

And here is the moment she’d tried to prepare for in her files on him. What could she offer to someone who got whatever he wanted the moment it crossed his mind? But when she found a mention of her voice note from approximately session 30, an idea had struck.

She prefers to ask large favors like this in person, but given her terrible acting skills, and Damien’s ability, over the phone is the only way she might play this right.

It would irrevocably blur the lines between them, cross a point of no return that could easily grow beyond her control. But therewasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to fix her mistake and get Mark out of the AM.

God help her.

“You’ve all but said you don’t want to be my patient. You harass Sarah to gain access to my calendar, follow me around, insist on Sarah _leaving_ so you can have private sessions with me, and even the AM has noticed your attention. What is it that you want, from me, personally?”

Damien is silent for what seems like forever, only his breathing indicating he’s still on the line. Despite his arrogance, he was intelligent. It was part of what frustrated her about him; all that potential, wasted. Or even worse, stymied by his own shortsightedness. _Come on Damien,_ she thinks, _you can_ _do it_.

“You must be desperate,” but then the scorn drops from his voice. “Why would you trust me with this?”

He hasn’t quite taken the bait. She needs to give him more before she can reel him in. She wrinkles her nose.

“Because, Damien, you were right. As reluctant as I am to admit it, you are my closest... friend. And I need a friend right now.” It sounds stilted even to her, but that she managed to get the words out of her mouth at all is a feat.

“And that’s what you’re offering me, _friendship_?” There’s something dangerous in his tone. Like she’s found where he hurts most and will rip her hand off before taking help from it. She has to give him credit, he's good at using his voice. He should’ve considered a career in theater.

“You know what I meant Damien. Are you really going to make me spell it out?”

“Oh, I know what you’ve just implied, I just wanted to hear it from your sweet lips. Dr. Bright, damnably moral and upright ‘non-profit’ whistle-blower, offering to blow… You know what, we’ll talk about this in person. What’s your timeline?”

She tells him of her plan, that in two weeks the AM will have laxer security over the holiday weekend.

“Alrighty then, I’ll be waiting for your call,” he drawls into the phone, “ _Joan_ _ie_.”

Clenching her cell phone, she hangs up before she says something she’ll regret. It wouldn’t do to antagonize him any further. Not when she’s put herself in his sights, and Damien was doggedly persistent in his obsessions. His stalking behavior would likely only increase in severity.

She pours herself a generous tumbler of scotch, and doesn’t know if it’s because she’s royally fucked herself or because she’s celebrating.

He’s hers, hook, line, and sinker.

### Sunday, June 19, 2016

Joan sleeps on her phone call with Damien. The next morning, she takes care of her errands, like laundry and picking up ready-made food from the co-op. She picks up her lunch there too, chicken parmigiana, the cheese still gooey from the oven.

She lets herself have ten minutes to wallow in what a fucking mess her life has become, then an orgasm to pick her mood back up. When she can’t justify putting off her phone call to Damien any longer, she bites the bullet.

“Dr. B!” Damien says cheerily. “Perfect timing. I was wondering when you were gonna call.”

“Good afternoon to you too, Damien. Can you come by my office tomorrow evening so we can plan?”

“Ohhh, why so formal, Dr. B? I thought we were past all that given your proposition last night.”

She bites off the retort wants to give him.

“Actually, why don’t I come by tonight? We both know our schedules are equally empty, and I don’t want you to be all alone in your time of need. That’s what friends do right? Friend in need, friend indeed, and all that.”

“Actually, Monday is just fine…”

“Oh, no, no. Wouldn’t want to give you time to wind yourself even more tightly up. You probably spent all night stressing your pretty head. Best just to get it over with, right? I’ll be at your place five. I’m at the pizza joint two blocks down. Ciao!”

There's no reason Damien should be in her neighborhood. From what she gathered, he lived in a different part of town. He’d either been watching her, or had been on his way to her house. Neither option is ideal, but she isn’t surprised.

The smell of grease, cheese, and marinara sauce wafting through her apartment announces his arrival.

She meets him by the door.  Balancing the cardboard box in one hand, he kicks her door shut with his sneaker. He better not leave scuff marks.

Crossing her arms, she says, “Do I want to ask how you got in here?”

“I asked the landlord for his skeleton key. He was very accommodating, and quite happy you had company.” He waggles his eyebrows.

Great, now she would have to deal with her landlord, a nice elderly man who was convinced she should let him matchmake her, from asking about Damien.

“I like the casual look on you,” he says.

She’d dressed quickly, knowing he’d likely arrive at any moment. Instead of a skirt, blouse, jewelry, and heels, she was in jeans, a shirt from her grad school days, and slippers. He was dressed the same as always, sloppily in sneakers, jeans with grease stains from where he must’ve wiped his hands, and a shirt reading _I’m an asshole, deal with it_.

Deliberately bumping her, he shoulders his way past her and into her living room where he tosses the cardboard box onto her coffee table. Popping the lid open, the smell of grease makes her stomach growl.

Damien plops into the armchair, and she reluctantly sits on the couch across from him.

He picks up a slice of pizza, a little soggy from the travel time, and offers it to her. She leans forward to take a bite. Only when she’s polished off the whole lukewarm piece, and contemplating licking the grease off his fingers, does she realize this is Damien and not her.

She pushes his hand away.

“Damien,” she warns.

“Joan,” he murmurs, licking the grease off his hands instead, keeping his eyes on hers. He’s surprisingly thorough at lapping it all up, and Joan crosses her legs.

“You didn’t come here to eat cheap pizza on my expensive coffee table, not when you could’ve done that at your own sorry home.”

“Oh, I love it when you’re so honest with me, Dr. B. So feisty. So fun.” He picks up another piece and dangles it into his open mouth. Pizza was meant to be eaten while hot and crunchy, not soggy and cold. Ugh, she can’t believe she ate it that way.

While his mouth is occupied, she takes the opportunity to get down to business.

“Since time is short, I’ve taken the liberty of creating a lesson plan.”

The over-sized bite he took works in her favor, because he’s still furiously chewing to get his two cents in. Probably, _I’m not in fucking school._

She continues, “Here are the skills I think you’ll likely need as you maneuver through the AM: getting answers to any questions you have, making people ignore your presence or walk away, making people forget you were there, and in the worst case scenario, de-escalating a situation.”  She lifts a finger for each skill.

“Please tell me you made a syllabus and have a ruler to smack me around with Ms. Bright.”

“Can you be serious?” she grits.

“Oh, we’ll get there. You won’t like this conversation once I’m serious.”

She lets that lie. She wants to give Damien all the important info before they settle upon terms.

“Future meetings will be at my office, after hours. _N_ _ot_ my home. I’ll make sure Sarah isn’t there.”

“That’s not gonna protect you Joan.”

She hates the way her name sounds in his mouth, like good bar of quality dark chocolate. It was even worse when he called her Joanie.

“Anything else?” he inquires, kicking his feet up, still in shoes, next to the cardboard box. Disgusting.

“Just take our lessons seriously,” she says tersely.

“Of course. I always keep my promises.”

She taps her slippered heel against the floor.

“Alright, now that we’ve taken care of your business, let’s get back to the important thing here, me.”

Good lord, how big _was_ his ego?

“Alright.” She gets up to grab a glass of apple juice to wash the taste of cheap pizza out of her mouth before starting this negotiation.

When she returns, Damien’s sitting on the couch, next to where she’d been sitting. If she takes the armchair, it’ll look like she’s afraid of him.

Bracing herself, she sits back in her spot. She sets the apple juice down, along with a second glass of sparkling rosé.

“Thanks, babe,” he says. Crossing his ankles on the table again, he takes a sip. “Ahhh, you got the good stuff, figures you would since you know French and all.”

“It’s from Sonoma County, not Champagne.”

“Huh.” He holds the glass up to the light, looking at the bubbles slowly rising. “I’m hurt you didn’t buy the real stuff to celebrate our new partnership.”

“You wouldn’t enjoy the real stuff.”

He guzzles the wine, but starts coughing on the effervescence. Once the sputtering subsides, he tries to be sinister again. “Dr. B, that’s exactly why I like you. You’re always real with me.”

“Unless you’re _wanting_ me into honesty,” she says sourly. She’d wanted to blunt her comments, but he was forcing them out her mouth. Maybe he enjoyed that. She’d roll her eyes if it wasn’t so unprofessional. Of course he’d never grown past pigtail pulling and mudslinging.

Best just to get this over with. “I haven’t had a chance to make an appointment, given today is Sunday, but I tested negative during my last STD panel.”

“And when was that?”

“During my physical last year.”

“Oooooh, that’s a shame. Hot lady like you going without. What is the world coming to!”

“It wasn’t high on my list of priorities.”

“Right, right, that’s why we’re here to begin with.” He crosses his ankles the other way, probably just to annoy her. Resting his hands in his lap, he’s a caricature of a therapist.

“And when were _you_ last tested?”

“Today. The customer service at the Planned Parenthood is stellar; they opened just for me.”

“Did you at least pay?” she sighs.

“I threw a $20 bill in the donations jar, doing my part for women’s health. I got a clean bill of health.”

He reaches into his back pocket and hands her some crumpled papers. She smooths it out and skims the results. He’d even gotten tested for HIV, although the results for that weren’t in yet.

“So, Dr. B, what kind of special therapy are you offering me that requires these results?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She needs to get a new couch, because with their combined weight together, the couch sinks enough that her shoulder and hip bump against his now.

“Oh, I just want to make sure I understand what’s on the table.”

“You’ve expressed interest in me. I am offering you a chance to explore that interest.”

“My interest in puppies? You don’t have any pets Dr. B.”

“Your interest of a personal nature in me.”

“Oh, so you’ll tell me more about how you feel about ratting your own brother out to your ex/current employer?”

Sitting this close to him, she can see the hint of marinara at the corner of his aggravating smile, the glee in his brown eyes. He slithers his arm over the back of the sofa and behind her head. She glares at him, clenching her fists. His eyes track the movement, and she forces them to relax. The little shit was enjoying every moment of this.

“Why are you being so obtuse? This is humiliating enough as it is. You’ve won Damien. You’ve got me exactly where you want me. What more do you want?”

“Because I want to hear you say it. Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to get me to do all this time? Get me to speak my truth, as shitty as it might be?”

His mental push against her is surprisingly weak. He really does want her to admit this all on her own. Bastard.

“I’m offering to sleep with you.”

“Literally?” His tongue darts out and licks his lips, including that spot of sauce.

“Figuratively. Knock boots, make the beast with two backs, fuck the daylights out of you.”

“Oh, Dr. B! I didn’t know you had it in you to talk like that. I guess I’ll have plenty of chances to learn more things about you in the coming weeks. There anything you _won’t_ do?”

“No, because I need your help, and I won’t jeopardize that.”

She despises admitting how vulnerable she is. She’d rather have this discussion with adequate space between them, not so close she can smell pepperoni on his breath, and see the marks his lips left on his glass of rosé.

“How do you know I’m not into some freaky shit? That I won’t hurt you?”

“Because you would’ve already. And the AM would’ve found you if hurting others was your thing. …I’m sure we can find some way to accommodate any kinks you have.”

“Anything you prefer I _not_ do, other than sex you up in general?” he adds.

“I’m not interested in branding, scarification, piercings, or bodily fluid beyond saliva and typical sexual ones.”

His eyes widen and his face grows slack, like he can’t believe she would be forthright without his help. “And what about once I get your precious baby brother back?”

“Whatever you want from me,” she says tightly. She can feel him pushing, wanting to know if she’s telling the truth. It’s a hot compress over her stomach when she’s cramping, her muscles relaxing, words unclenching. “I’m willing to do whatever you want.”

She hates that he made her admit that.

“Well, this has been _most_ informative, Dr. B. Or should I say Joan, given we’re going to be _intimate_ friends?” He laughs. “Oh I can feel how much you want to say something. But let’s end tonight on a high note, okay?” He leans in close.

She braces herself for him to kiss her.

He bites her ear instead and whispers, “Just kidding. Anticipation makes it all the sweeter right? See, I’ve been listening to all your talk about delayed gratification after all.”

He pulls back, gets off her couch, brushes the crumbs off his lap, and stretches. She can see the briefs riding up from his jeans are hunter green.

Yawning, he says, “Well, we know I’ll be able to get any answers I need.  You can check that off your AM to-do list.”

He takes his leave, leaving dirt on her coffee table and the leftover pizza.

### Monday, June 20, 2016

 _c_ _u @ 6p_ , an unknown number texts her at lunch.

Of course Damien has her number. It chafes, but she adds him into her contact book.

 _b_ _ring the leftover pz_ _i_ _za_ 😜 💦

She doesn’t understand what the emoticons mean, but she is not storing his terrible pizza in her work fridge. She does suppose, though, since he’s coming right after Sarah leaves, she should have food as a courtesy. Not to mention she’s not sure she can handle him on an empty stomach. He might make horrible innuendos about what else could fill her mouth. Gross.

She tells Sarah she’ll be staying late the next two weeks, on account of the AM wanting to do an impromptu audit.

Sarah clicks her teeth at that. “Don’t push yourself too hard,” she says kindly while packing up for the day. “Burying yourself in work can only go so far. Why don’t you find a nice boy?”

Joan cringes. Sarah knew about her less-than-stellar taste in men, and Joan does not want her seeing Damien skulking about.

“I’ll keep that under advisement.”

“You need some fun, Joan,” Sarah teases, shouldering her pink purse.

Joan sighs. “I assure you I’ve booked a massage and will go to some yin yoga in addition to my Friday night power flow.”

Sarah fixes her with a look and then leaves.

She’s not entirely sure when Damien will show, so she takes the moment to dig the sandwich from the locally owned grocery store out her fridge. She takes it out to the waiting room, and has it opened up and is squeezing mayo and mustard on it when Damien waltzes in.

“Hello, Dr. B,” he sings.

“Hello, Damien,” she says with as much blasé as she can muster.

“Looks like I made it just in time for dinner! Gimme some of that.”

She doesn’t want to give it to him. She’s hungry enough she’s ready to ruin her lipstick over it, but he is a guest after all, and the shame at being a poor guest is warm across her skull…

No, that’s Damien. Her hand freezes, half-way to handing it to him.

“Nice, but it’ll still do.” He bends down and bites into it, dropping lettuce and dripping vinegar and oil onto the table.

“Keep it,” she says, shoving the rest of it into his mouth until he grabs it.

She retrieves the second sandwich, prosciutto, and sets about unwrapping it.

Damien keeps devouring his. “Can I try yours?” he asks with a full mouth.

“No.”

After a moment, he says, “Thanks for providing dinner” the same way people say _Sure is nice weather we’re having._

“You’re welcome.”

Once Damien finishes devouring his sandwich, he declares himself ready to start practicing, never mind Joan is still eating. He scooches onto the edge of the couch and sits upright, more attentive than he’s ever been in one of their sessions.

“Let’s start with the easy shit.” He smiles, pushes the sleeves of his Henley up. “Touch your nose with the sandwich.”

“What?”

But there it is, the force of his power when he’s being sloppy with it, not even trying to be subtle. The want is abrupt and clearly not hers, it feels like the rough side of Velcro scraping at her. But still, he’s never pressed quite like this, hot and throbbing like a migraine, and she can’t totally avoid it.

So instead, she touches her nose with her free hand instead.

“Clever girl,” he says.

“Can I finish my sandwich?” she grouses.

“Fine, fine.” He waves his hand magnanimously. “Wouldn’t want you to be hangry.”

She remembers another patient using that term. And although she doesn’t use it, it is fairly accurate. She could take a bite of his forearms, veins and muscle and all.

It’s awkward to eat with Damien watching her every bite and swallow, so she eats slowly just to annoy him. And indeed, he gets bored pretty quickly and starts scrolling through his phone.

As she wipes her hands on the brown napkin (Damien had wiped it on his jeans of course, leaving yellow mustard stains on his thighs), Damien says, “Finally, can we start now? Hand me your phone.”

At her flat stare, he adds, “You wanted me to practice how long my effect lasts, so hand me your phone, and we’ll see how long it takes you to get it.”

“Why not something less valuable, like a pen?”

He rolls his eyes. “Because whatever I ask from the AM stooges, it’s going to be something they’ll notice. No one cares about losing a pen. Now, your phone Dr. B.”

He sinks his power into that, a cold breeze at the top of her spine as she walks to her purse, still in her private office. She lingers over her purse, trying not to take it out. She doesn’t keep anything sensitive on it, but she doesn’t want him there regardless. Still, looking at the time would be fine; it’d be more accurate than her watch, and every minute passed was one less minute in Damien’s presence.

She slips it into the pocket discretely built into her skirt and walks back out, gathering up the sandwich wrappers and napkins.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Damien asks, bemused.

Her hand goes to her phone, and she wants to give it to him, shivers running down her spine, damn it. She slams it into his open hand.

“Thanks, doll. Now go back into your office while I liveblog going through your phone. What’s the passcode?”

The cold creeps up her brain and starts to feel like brain freeze. “Fine, you don’t need to push. It’s 29766.”

“Got it. Now off you go.” He dismisses her with a twirl of his fingers, already gazing intently at her phone.

The moment, she turns around and steps towards her office, the chill begins to recede. She adjusts the thermostat as she enters, tosses the trash, and sits down to work on her reports to the AM.

* * *

 Damien. Her phone. _Shit._

She throws her pen onto the table, and scrambles to her feet. Her wristwatch reads 6:25pm. What time had it been when she’d looked at her cell phone? 6:18pm.

She strides back into the waiting room.

Damien looks up and bemoans, “Took you long enough. You don’t even have any social media, not even Facebook, and Facebook is for old people! I’ve been looking forward to shit post how much you care about your favorite patient all over it.” She has not clue what he’s talking about, but she’s sure it’s some kind of invasion of privacy.

She reaches her hand out for her phone.

“Let’s do it again.”

“Again?” he says, clearly surprised.

“You won’t be able to get Mark out in seven minutes unless God himself appears, and neither you nor I are believers. We need to aim for fifteen minutes, and even that is going to be pushing it. So, ask me for the phone, and try to keep me in my office for fifteen minutes.”

By the end of the night, he’s up to twelve minutes. She’s not surprised that he’s improved that much; he probably was barely trying the first time.

“Good progress,” she says, and she sees how he perks up at that. Hm, perhaps positive re-enforcement could be helpful here. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He salutes her and then skips out.

Once he’s gone, she checks her phone, looking for what havoc he might’ve done. There’s a voice note of him imitating what he imagines her own must be like, narrating him going through her phone. There’s a series of photos in her camera reel of him making faces.

But he’s also assigned a photo of himself to to his contact. It looks like the kind of photo people put on online dating profiles, trying to look both inviting and normal. Damien just looks like he’s attempting his best smoulder through the lens, hair deliberately mussed, eyes tightened, his mouth quirked at the corner.

Once she locks the office up and finally kicks her heels off at home, she pours herself a nightcap.

Her phone buzzes mid drink.

_goodngiht Dr.B_

She downs the rest.

### Tuesday, June 21, 2016

He shows up bringing fucking _Panda Express_ for lunch, right as Sarah’s leaving for her break.

“Damien, you don’t have an appointment,” Sarah says, a little tightly. Joan’s touched that Sarah’s protective of her fictional audit.

“It’s alright, Sarah,” she says.

“That’s right, Sarah,” Damien boasts. “Dr. B’s always got time for her favorite patient, especially when I brought lunch for the both of us. She hasn’t eaten yet has she?”  He dangles two bags of Panda Express, a soft drink in the other.

“No,” Sarah says hesitantly. She makes eye contact with Joan, and Joan nods, acknowledging she’ll call if anything goes wrong. While Sarah doesn’t know about how unique her patients are, she still knows Damien sets Joan’s teeth on edge.

Once Sarah is gone, Joan seizes one bag, hoping he’s tacky enough to use a Panda Express but put something else inside. But no, there’s the pungent smell of orange chicken and cream cheese rangoons. Joan is tempted to chuck the thing at his head when Emperor’s Delight is a couple of blocks away and serves actual Chinese food. She’ll have to come in early tomorrow to air out the place, she doesn’t want it smelling like Panda Express.

“Let’s just skip lunch and practice,” she says. If she has to eat this she’s going to consider cannibalism as a merciful alternative. “What about the phone exercise again?”

But Damien says, “Nah, let’s do something different.”

He takes the bags of food into her private office, and spreads the food over her desk, rice, chow mein, eggrolls, kung pao chicken. He disregards the couple of papers there, and they’ll surely have grease stains by the end of the hour.

He reaches down to the drawer she keeps her liquor in.

“I’m gonna drink all your scotch, stop me if you can! Now out with you.” He shoos her. She doesn’t want him to drink it all, but staying feels like a weight in her cold stomach.

She trudges back to the waiting room, leans against the wall, trying to find a way to go back inside. He’d driven her to buy the scotch, and he was not going to drive her to buy another good bottle of it.

She thinks of sheep, small animals, Mark, but none of that works. Fine, the hard way it is then.

She steps back inside, even though every sense of hers is screaming at her not to, that this is bad news. She values her gut instinct, knows it’s valuable, and hates Damien makes her question it. She reminds herself this isn’t what it seems, this is just another illusion. She takes each step, the alarm bells ringing even stronger.

“Wow, that was fast,” Damien mumbles past a mouth full of rice and bell peppers.

“Where’s the scotch?” Each word is like spitting out large ice cubes.

“In my lap,” he replies with a shit-eating grin. He picks up a half-full tumbler from the desk and waves it at her. “So you gonna stop me or what?”

“You remembered our goals,” she notes with surprise.

“I’m a star pupil for you, Ms. Bright,” he winks. “So, I’m trying to redirect what you want to do when you have me in your sights.”

The pressure lets up, and Joan doesn’t feel like she’s in shark-infested waters anymore.

She finds though, that while she’s able to approach the desk and sit down across from it, she can’t grab for the glass, her hands just reaching for the chopsticks instead.

She eats, trying to figure out how to seize her liquor back.

He sips the scotch, “Mmm, good stuff.” He pours himself more.

She taps her heel against the floor.

“That’s twelve and a half minutes,” he says.

“Good work,” she manages. “Now, my liquor, Damien.”

He hands her the bottle, warm from being between his legs. She looks at it. “Did you even drink from it?” she inquires.

He smiles, like a cat with the cream. “Nope. Been drinking my cola.”  He lifts up his soft drink, and pours it into the tumbler.

“You… you made me think you were pouring from the scotch instead.” And yes, she can see the liquid’s a different color entirely.

“Yup, you were so focused on getting the glass back, it was easy to slip it past you.”

“Well done,” she concedes.

They finish off the remnants of lunch. Joan wants to spit the soggy eggrolls and unseasoned fried rice out, but she keeps swallowing.

She nudges aside the chicken with the back end of her chopsticks. He hasn’t done anything remotely sexual yet, and it makes her nervous. She doesn’t want to push her luck, but having this hover over her is taking up valuable space in her brain. She sets down her chopsticks over the container of rice.

“Why haven’t you asked me for sexual favors?”

He guffaws, “Sexual favors? Is that what we’re calling you voluntarily offering to sleep with me?”

She wants to tell him it’s not very voluntary, but wisely says nothing.

“You want some of this? Fine,” he sighs, setting down his chopsticks too, “sit on my lap.”

“No,” Joan says.

“But my lap is cold,” he pouts.

“You didn’t answer my question, and this has nothing to do with what we need to be practicing.”

“Says you. This is… convincing people to help me.”

“That’s the one skill I didn’t think you needed help on,” she mutters. Even knowing the desire to walk behind the desk and sit down is his, she still stands up. The flutter of anticipation is shamefully hers though as she leans her hip against the desk and stares down at him.

“Attagirl. The view from here is nice, but I gotta admit it’ll be even better with you here.”

“That’s the best you can come up with?”

“You love it.”

He twirls the chair around so his lap is just waiting for her. This is _her_ chair and _her_ desk after all, and shouldn’t she sit here? Damien would be just like another piece of furniture here. These thoughts aren’t hers, but their appeal is immediate, like having the taste of chocolate in her mouth and trying to spit it out despite how much she wants to swallow it.

She sits down, his lap a little cool.

“Uh, that was easy,” shock in his voice.

She’d rather do something lower stakes like this than have their first encounter be sex, but she says nothing of it.

He shifts beneath her, his slouch not comfortable for either of them. He doesn’t sit with his legs splayed, instead they’re almost primly together. It forces her legs apart over his thighs, making her lined skirt ride up and pull uncomfortably. She tries to get her legs on either side of him, so she won’t be displaying her thighs.

“Oh, no,” he says, looping an arm around her waist, and pulling her against his chest. “No sitting side-saddle for you. I like having all of your ass on me.”

She reaches down for her skirt, but realizes the wiggling she’ll have to do to pull it down isn’t worth it.

“You’re a lot softer than you look,” he notes. She can feel the rumble of his voice through her ribcage and the rise and fall of his breath.

“You’ve been coming to therapy just to stare at my ass?” She’s never going to have a therapy session with him again without wondering if he’s checking her out. Actually, she’ll never have a therapy session with him again, because there’s no way she could after crossing these lines.

“Well, you do have a nice set of tits too. You’re always so fucking modest, covering them up. Makes a man wonder what you’ve got.”

His hot hands skate up and caress the underwire of her bra through her blouse. Just a little higher up, and he’d be cupping her breasts. She struggles to keep her breathing even, but then her stomach growls.

“Alright, food first then,” he sighs. “You’ve been lookin kinda thin lately. Stress I guess. I’d hate to see this beautiful ass shrink because of it.” He grabs her hips and rocks her back and forth over his lap.

This is exactly why she wanted a lower-risk activity like this. It’s taking restraint not to tear him apart. If she’d jumped straight into sex, she’d likely bite his balls off to make him shut up.

He picks up his chopsticks and picks up some orange chicken. It takes him a couple of tries to get in the rhythm of it, but he brings it to her mouth.

“Seriously?”

“C’mon Dr. B, before I drop it on your skirt and I have to lick it up.”

She bites the chicken out of his chopsticks more aggressively than she needs to. Eventually, he complains of hand cramps, and proceeds to just pick up food and feed her.

She tries not to think of what he’s touched with his hands since he last washed them, but keeps eating the sticky and saccharine morsels. She draws the line at having to lick a palmful of rice out of his hand. He just shrugs and eats it himself. He makes her eat the next palmful plus more of the kung pao chicken, insisting it’ll fill her up.

He also has a double order of the cream cheese filled rangoons that are her guilty pleasure, complete with the sweet and sour dipping sauce. She has to embarrassingly stick her tongue out to prevent it from dripping on her skirt, and she does not want Damien making good on that threat.

(Alright, so she might have had the occasional, _passing_ thought of putting Damien’s mouth to better uses, including stuffing it with his paperwork, hooking her fingers into his cheek, or just seeing if he was such a pain in the ass because he needed to beg to lick her to orgasm. Needless to say she does not want any of those anywhere near the top of her mind.)

She’s licking his fingers clean of eggroll crumbs (again, at his insistence), the taste of grease and sauce coating her mouth. She pushes his fingers back with her tongue, shifting her weight, uncomfortable with where this may lead.

His erection twitches against her backside. When had that happened?

“Did you make me not notice you adjusting yourself?” She tries to lick the remnants of sauce off her lips, but he wipes it with his fingers. She can’t see him do it, but she hears him pop his fingers into his mouth and loudly suck them clean.

“Yup. Figured you wouldn’t finish your meal if you were distracted by my impressive manhood.”

She turns her head to glare at him. “It’s statements like that that make you insufferable.”

“But you love me like this.” He grins back.

Ugh, this really was his notion of foreplay. And as much as she hated to say it, it was hers as well. It was part of what made working for Ellie so appealing.

He releases the compulsion for her to stay on his lap. She quickly gets up, pulling her skirt down, brushing off any crumbs that’ve accumulated. Her legs feel a little weak, but she is not going to waver in these heels.

“Why are you letting me go so easily?”

“Lunch is almost over. Sarah will be back any moment, and I like to savor my meals.” He gives her a slow once over, starting from her point toed heels to the neatly combed crown of her head. “And you deserve to be savored.”

“You can see yourself out. Please don’t bother Sarah either if you see her.”

* * *

As she brushes her teeth that night, she hears her phone ring from the living room at an obnoxiously loud volume. She heads back out to lower the ringtone, but can’t figure out why it won’t lower.

She opens the message, a photo of Damien yawning in bed, the text under it reading _nighty night joan_.

### Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Damien shows up at 7:17pm, right as Joan’s about to assume he’s stood her up. She’s already eaten her dinner, and is ready to go home and call this Damien-less day a triumph.

But no, he shows up with a half-drunk bottle of Sprite that’s lost all its fizz. Who drinks soda that’s flat?

Damien wipes his mouth across the sleeve of his navy sweatshirt, the hem at the sleeves fraying.

“Why are you wearing sunglasses at night?” she asks.

“I thought it’d add to the whole secret agent thing going on. What’s it called… method acting!”

She leans back against the couch, thankful she invested in a good one. Just the right amount of support and give.

“Take them off, please.”

He shoves them back into his mess of dark hair. “Geez, Dr. B, you sure look tense.”

“Of course I am, the last four years of my life come down to a single moment next week that depends on _you_ of all people. Why wouldn’t I be tense?”

He leans down, sets the bottle on the coffee table, and licks his lips. This close, she can see down his loose v-neck. His lips are glossy with either Chapstick or whatever he last ate. “How ’bout I help you with that?” She doesn’t smell food on his breath, just the sugar from the soda, so it must be lip balm. Go figure, he couldn’t manage to dress himself in anything other than casual wear, but knew about Chapstick.

“The poison is most certainly not the cure in this instance.”

“We can call this… practice.” He sits next to her. “Why don’t you sit on the floor?”

“Damien,” she warns him, even though she knows it's pointless now. But she carefully takes her seat between his knees anyway, crossing her heels to her right side, toeing the peep-toe heels off so her hips aren’t at an awkward angle. Sometimes she finds it easier to comply before he starts pushing, saving her willpower for the things she truly doesn’t want to do.

Placing his hands on her shoulders, he leans down. He says into her ear, “Bet you only cross your ankles and never your knees, right?”

Damien has a thing about wanting to put people on pedestals just to tear them down. Women never fared well in that scenario. Best to intervene.

“I do, in fact, cross my knees.”

He huffs; it’s ticklish. “Dr. B, I’m trying to build the mood here.”

She closes her eyes, counts to five. “Fine, go ahead.”

“Sheesh, you’re too tense to appreciate my genius right now. Fine, we’ll do it your way.”

She jerks away, but he tightens his grip on her shoulders.

His left hand grabs her hair. She expects him to yank her by it, but he surprises her by gently gathering her hair. He hesitates, as if unsure what to do with it next, then carefully sets it over her shoulder.

“I like your hair. It’s pretty. Wanna know what it looks like when you sleep.” He presses his face into it, inhales. She can feel the rush of air against her scalp as he exhales, then smooths her hair back.

“Smells good too.”

The lassitude settling across her shoulders from his touch can’t be natural. She wants to resist it, she does, but the respite he’s feeding her is so hard to struggle against. She feels the fight seep out of her.

“There we go,” he says, as her head falls back against the edge of the couch.

His thumbs start rubbing her shoulders in small circles, then his fingertips knead at her collarbones.

“How about you take your shirt up? I can reach your shoulders better.”

She unbuttons her sweater (“Ugh, buttons”), and lays it across her legs (“Oh, fuck”).

Damien reaches down for the bottom of her blouse and yanks it up. It’s tailored though, so it doesn’t stretch over her shoulders easily. She lifts her arms up, and Damien divests her of her blouse, tossing it to the floor. Sliding his fingers beneath her bra strap, he pushes them down her arms.

He presses a kiss where her neck and spine meet, whimpering. His fingers once again stroking her skin, her upper arms. There’s something reverential about the way he’s touching her, and she wants to buck away from that, but it’s so much easier to just acquiesce.

He resumes rubbing her shoulders. He digs his knuckles in, and draws them across her spine.

The pain breaks his hold on her.

She’s not sure what’s worse, not knowing when he’s influencing her, or knowing it and being unable to do anything about it.

When she turns to look at him, the look on his face is still reverant. But she sees it fade bit by bit as his gaze focuses and mouth sets with scorn, hoping it’d save his dignity, the same way she’d tried to by pushing her bra straps back up.

But she feels vulnerable, standing there in her underthings and skirt. And maybe, he was too.

“Oh, not good enough for you, I see,” he sneers.

Yes, pedestal, pulling her down from it.

She might actually get somewhere with him if she can speak to the soft part of him, that touched her like he couldn’t believe he had her in his hands.

“What were you thinking?” she says softly.

“That you really must’ve been hard up to let me touch you so easily.”

“That’s not what you were thinking, and we both know it.”

He gazes up at her from his seat on the couch. Self-loathing all over his face, and Joan knows whatever he says next won’t be pretty. “You told me I could do anything to you. Don’t get all girly and cry about it now. Do you know how many things I’ve thought about, all those sessions with you so carefully restrained. Can you blame me for trying to take the icicle out your cunt? Did you even make sure it still worked before you offered it up so sweetly to me?”

And despite knowing he’s being a prick on purpose, anger floods her warm and satisfying. She rises to the bait damn it.

“You know what, Damien? The thing that frustrates me the most is that you could be genuinely appealing and persuasive if you wanted to, especially with that voice. You think your ability is just pushing your wants into other people, but you’ve mentioned you can pick up on what people want too. You could literally answer the age-old question cavemen like you have been wondering: what do women want? They even made a movie about it! Never mind you don’t need to be atypical to get that answer when you could _just ask women_.”

“I’m appealing?” his voice drops with pleasured surprise.

“That’s what you’re taking from what I just said? You need to leave. We’re done for today.”

“Oh no, not when it’s just getting good. Tell me, Joan, what about me is appealing?”

She can feel him pushing at her and redirects it. “The prospect of fixing my mistake at last and getting Mark to forgive me.”

“That’s interesting, and I’m glad you know I love getting those gems out of you, but don’t dodge the question.”

He increases his grip on her, pushing his thoughts into her brain, like a boy who thinks French kissing involves intubating her with his tongue. Still, she wants to.

She tries to bite down on her lip, but she can’t do that either.

Glaring at him, she speaks. “Despite the fact your taste in writers is juvenile and crap, you’re smart. It’s a waste of that mind to spend it like this.”

“You mean, forcing girls like yourself? I told you Dr. B, I don’t do that. But you do like our little chats don’t you?”

“Yes. As frustrating as they are, they can be exhilarating in their own way, like riding a roller coaster, like the way Ellie and I used to argue.”

“Ellie?”

“Director Wadsworth.”

“The lady in charge of the AM? Oh ho, this is rich.” He laughs. “You’re a slut for danger then?”

“No, I like being challenged.”

He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes as he laughs even harder. “So you like me _because_ I’m an ego-tripping prick.”

“No, I don’t _like_ you. …But you are my type.”

God, please let this end just now before he squeezes anything else out of her.

“Knew you liked me, Doc.” He winks at her. His mood swings were infuriating, but never boring.

“Believe me when I say it’s a weakness and a curse.”

He stands up, grabbing her by the hips, and it does feel good to be touched there. He spins her around, pulling her tight against him, holding her in place.

Again, with his whispering into her ear. What does he think he is, a two-bit villain? “In for a penny, in for a pound, right? So let’s get our pound of flesh.”

She wants to correct his messy use of mixed metaphors, but he pushes her down, and she lies down on the floor.

Lying face down, fear settles in her stomach. “Damien, what are you doing?”

“Nothing you don’t want me to. You did just lecture me on how I need to be better right? And I do hate to disappoint.”

He straddles her, sitting on the small of her back and legs bracketing her hips and thighs. His jeans are so thin, she feels his body heat easily.

“Alrighty then, let’s try this again. Tell me Doc, where do you want me to touch you?”

Holding her tongue is like sucking on a hot coal. “Underneath my armpit.”

“Ohh, right by your boobs. Nice.”

Without being completely under his influence, his massage technique is clearly shit.

“I’m not a piece of dough to be punched! Small circles, feel out the muscles,” she directs him.

“Your bra’s kinda in the way, can I unhook it?” His fingers rub the lace there.

Joan lets him, his hands sliding down her sides. He tries to snap the band, but she likes her bras snug, and he can’t get pull it far enough back. So he unhooks it, and glides his palms over her back, pushing the band away. She shrugs herself out of the straps.

She’s surprised he doesn’t flip her over to ogle her breasts, but she doesn’t look that gift horse in the mouth.

He pays special attention to where her bra has left marks on her rib cage.

“That shit doesn’t hurt?” he asks, as he rubs the tender skin.

“Mm, that’s nice.”

“Women,” he mutters. His thumbs make their way back to her spine and then the muscles between there and her shoulder blades.

She categorizes the sensation of his presence in her mind. His pairing it with something physically pleasurable is certainly… unique. It makes the intrusion less severe, more like a stimulus-reward experience. That sensation of her brain being rubbed the wrong (uncomfortable), but followed by him pressing into her knots with just the right amount of pressure (wonderful).

Damien continues to move across her back, urging her to tell him just where to touch and with how much pressure. And damn him, it _is_ a good massage. She has to bite back moans and wriggle her toes instead. When he pins a particularly nasty knot in her lower back, she kicks her feet up, hitting his back.

He grunts, “Have I loosened you up?”

“Yes,” she mutters, cheek pressed to the floor.

“Ah, don’t forget to turn your head, gotta get even carpet marks on both sides.”

He takes the weight of her skull in his hands, turns it, then pats her cheek.

“Time for me to go, then.”

His weight lifts from her, and he tosses her blouse over her back.

“Don’t forget to drink Gatorade, or whatever, they say after these kinda things. The want in me sees the want in you, or whatever.”

She watches him leave, not wanting to move from the lassitude.

It’s the first time he lets himself out without a fight.

* * *

She wakes up the next morning, her spine popping as she sits up, a pleasant ache throughout her body. It feels like there’s more space in her body for something other than focus and anger. All of the hallmarks of an excellent massage, damn it.

As she drinks her coffee, she checks her phone. A photo of him looking up at the phone, biting his thumb. _m_ _y hands_ _are_ _tired._ _k_ _ss it bet_ _t_ _er?_

Then a second text. _they were magic y/y?_

She carefully types out her reply. _See you at 5pm._

### Friday, June 24, 2016

The veneer of practicing for July 2nd is thin, but it’s still there. He’s up to thirteen minutes of control, which will likely last longer on other people than Joan. Not everyone had such a defined sense of self as she did, especially at the AM, where things like morals and questioning orders weren’t valued.

Damien refuses to play keep away with her phone, scotch, or case files. Instead, his requests become increasingly… personal.

“Stare into my eyes for ten minutes. I read it builds intimacy, or makes you hallucinate. Only one way to find out, right?”

“That isn’t our goal, Damien.”

“Isn’t it?”

The eight minutes he manages to keep her staring are awkward. She notices the acne scars at his temple and near his chin. His face is surprisingly absent of shaving nicks; perhaps he doesn’t need to shave? But categorizing his face only takes a couple of moments. Watching his pupils dilate is perhaps the most unnerving thing, like a mouth trying to swallow her up.

Damien doesn’t try to look away like she does, but he does slump down in his chair, crosses his arms and ankles nervously.

Good, let him squirm in discomfort for a change. He doesn’t like to be seen, but he’s an easy book to read: he wanted to be loved, but couldn’t get his head out his ass enough to realize he was his own worst enemy. It was pathetic, honestly.

But what did it make her to use that part of him for her own gain instead of helping him?

### Saturday, June 25, 2016

_good morning joanie._

A photo of him in bed. Navy sheets tossed down to his hips revealed his bare chest. And he had the audacity to wink at the camera.

He continues sending suggestive photos, never crossing into outright nudity. Photos of his chest, his shoulders, his belly with hair trailing into his sweatpants. That one had read _u know u want to sleep here._

Perhaps worst of all, he’s showing he is picking up on her wants. He texts her with less typos, although he insists on calling her pet names. When he shows up to practice, his hair is combed, his clothes are stainless, and he even wears a jacket instead of a hoodie.

Seeing him cleaned up to impress her is truly bizarre, and yet, she can’t say it’s a bad look on him. Without being an eyesore, it’s harder to ignore his voice, deep enough to be just shy of a rumble. Perfect to listen to if he only he didn’t spew such bullshit.

Perhaps in Damien’s case, change needed to come from without and then within. That it’s coming from an urge to impress a woman is less than ideal. He’s likely to backslide the moment the woman is out of his life. Joan stops that line of thought, she isn’t sure how she’ll get out of their deal once Mark’s home.

Reneging would be a terrible idea. If his parents’ abandonment was enough for him to be like this, she can only imagine his fury would be terrible. God, what a wreck she’d pinned herself to.

But if she could make him grateful, loyal to her for giving him the attention he always wanted, having his power at her disposal would be the next best thing to having his ability herself…

She stops those thoughts too. Using people like that is a line too far, even for her. She doesn’t need Damien’s devotion to help Mark. For now, all she needs is his compliance until Mark is out.

### Sunday, June 26, 2016

“Let’s work on my ability to get answers.”

“I think you have that one well in hand,” she remarks dryly from across the coffee table in her waiting room. She likes having their practice sessions here, differentiating it from their usual ones in her private office.

“Oh, I insist. Can’t be anything but my best for you, can I?”

At the third question he asks ( _Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?_ ), they’re beginning to sound familiar.

As he’s mid-way through the next question ( _If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability..._ ), she blurts out, “Are these those thirty-nine questions meant to build intimacy?”

“Thirty-six, and to build love. Not that I’m looking for love.”

“Yes,” she says dryly, “I gathered that. Damien, this has nothing to do with the goals we set.”

“That _you_ set. I think I’m pretty good on those goals. We both know most people can’t resist me as well as you can. Speaking of we, the next question is ‘Make three we statements.’ I’ll start…”

Joan hadn’t paid too much attention to this bit of pop psychology, but she’s fairly certain Damien’s skipped a lot of the questions that would require answering anything about his past.

“…We are equally douche-y and determined people. We are looking for entertainment in a dull and boring world. And we both want to tear each other’s...”

She throws her napkin at his face, and he yelps.

“This defeats the point Damien, the questions are meant to build intimacy, which for whatever reason, you seem keen on doing. Relationships aren’t just one-sided, we both have to give something. And right now, you’re just giving shallow answers and forcing me to give mine.”

“But how will I know if you’re being honest with me?” Christ, he looks genuinely affronted.

“That’s how,” _the rest of us,_ “most of move through the world. You’ll have to trust me. And if I recall what Agent Green told me, you said you trusted me.”

“I do.”

His grip on her eases.

“Now, try again,” she encourages.

“We’re people with empty lives, who understand each other better than we want to, and we hate that so much, we want to tear each other’s clothes off.”

She hugs her arms across her body, but won’t be the first to look away.

“Better, but was that scary for you to admit?”

“It would be for you.”

“Yes. But you already know you can compel me to admit things that unnerve me. Now, as you said, stop dodging the question.”

He looks down at the list on his phone, thumb lingering. “If I tell you something, will you tell me something in return, honestly?” _Without me forcing you?_ His face is forlorn again, lost somewhere he won’t let her go. (Maybe a therapist isn’t what he needed. He needed someone to make the leap to trust him, and then he’d grab the lifeline. …It won’t be her though.)

“Yes.”

Staring at his phone, he says, “I wish I had someone with whom I could share… my power with.”

“What about it is appealing?”

“They’d get it.”

“And why is that so important?”

He shrugs, fidgeting with the device.

“I’m not going to give you my answer then.”

He stops flipping around his phone, clutches it. “Because then I wouldn’t be alone.”

She lets the silence stretch, the clock ticking. She’d usually give some encouragement and advice here, but he’s right, they’ve long since passed being patient and client.

“Alright then. Hand me your phone, and I’ll answer one of the questions.”

Dropping the phone on the table with a clatter, he slides it over to her.

Gazing at the screen, she considers her options.

“Five positive characteristics about your partner,” she begins. He flinches, stares at the wall behind her.

“You’re determined. You’re eager to learn about what interests you. That makes you a good sparring partner, and I do appreciate that in a person. Your voice is pleasant to listen to when I can ignore what you’re saying. And you do give wonderful massages when you put your mind to it.”

His eyes flick back to her, and looking into them she considers, not for the first time, what it would be like to be elbow-deep in his wretched guts. What could shine in him if only he wiped away the layer of stupid mannish arrogance.

“You’ve said that before,” he says, voice thick.

“Yes, but now you know I meant it. I’ve done it of my own volition, without any outside insistence.”

“Um, thanks Dr. B. I’m gonna… head out now.”

How interesting, he’s retreating. She’ll go over their conversation later, trying to figure out where exactly she’d pressed so he became so off balance, so pliant.

* * *

Once she hears his car start and pull away, she sends him a text message.

 _Goodnight, Damien_.

And for once, Damien is the one without a reply.

### Monday, June 27, 2016

“Focus, Damien,” she says tersely after climbing off his lap in under three minutes. “We only have four more practice sessions, and we need to make the most of it.”

She stands just in front of his sneakers, and crosses her arms in frustration, as he sits there slouched on the couch. He hadn’t even bothered to set her on top of his thighs. He’d sat her down between his sprawled thighs as his mind wandered elsewhere. He didn’t even touch her like he normally would.

“Why don’t _you_ just relax, Joan? I’ve got everything under control just fine.” His gaze lingers on her, starting at her pencil skirt and moving up her body. She can practically feel the scorn coming off of him in heat waves, and she prepares herself for whatever bullshit he’s about to spit out. Retaliation, probably, for making him face his vulnerabilities yesterday.

“You know, _you_ could stand to blow off some steam, Joan. You were so tight during that massage. Are you tight in other places too from disuse? You said it’s been, what, years since someone made that pussy cream?”

Her hand moves without thought, and she slaps him. The noise isn’t as loud as she thought it’d be, but the way his face snaps to one side is just as satisfying. As he looks at her through his hair, touching his cheek with his fingertips, she realizes, too late, the fire in his eyes isn’t anger at all. She’d miscalculated (or perhaps there was a reason she’d slapped him without thought...).

“Keep looking at me, Joan,” he says, like this is just another game.

She doesn’t look away as he sits up, slithers off the couch, and stands to loom over her. Their faces are too close together. Still, she leans up to look at him, and then his mouth claims hers.

He’s a greedy kisser, of course, all open mouth and tongue licking her lips apart. At her gasp, his tongue plunges deep in her mouth. It should feel intrusive, but it still feels like gasping for air after being underwater too long. She bites him, and when their mouths part, he fucking _laughs_ at her.

“C’mon Dr. B, do it again, I know you’ve been thinking about it.”

She grabs his T-shirt and tugs him back down to her easily. Biting his bottom lip hard, because it’s not fair for a man to have a mouth like that, she relishes the way he moans. She wants to feel that against her body. Wants to know just how filthy his mouth can get when applied in a more directed manner.

“Fuck, _Joan_.”

He slips his hands under her shirt and paws at her breasts, kneading them over her bra. He yanks the cups down. The band bites into her sides, but her nipples rubbing against her shirt are more uncomfortable.

He eyes her jutting nipples hungrily. “Oh, I can fix that,” he says laden with promise.

He laves her through her shirt. Whimpering, she grabs his head, digging her fingers into his hair, pulling him closer.

“Guess those thirty-six questions worked after all,” he pants, then worries her nipple with his teeth.

She gasps. “You’re just upset I got one over you yesterday.” The barb doesn’t have much sting to it with her unbuttoning the top of her shirt.

He wisely says nothing, and pushes the blouse off her shoulders instead. She yanks it off, letting it fall on the floor, while Damien presses his face between her breasts and just inhales. With the silence, her mind starts to clear – this doesn’t _feel_ like Damien pulling one over her. If anything, it’s like he’s feeding her own idle fantasies, making them more tangible, and that’s heady and dangerous and she can’t bring herself to care.

His arms circle her waist and pull her down, until they’re both on their knees.

It’d never been like this with Owen. Owen had been generous in bed, but it’d never been white hot like this. And she knows that fast, hot burns don’t make for good relationships, but fuck, there was something to be said about men who were her type. Jerks who wound her up and got her off. And Damien, as much as she hated to admit it, was challenging in a professional and personal capacity, someone she couldn’t control, and that was an attractive combination.

“You’re thinking too hard,” he mumbles.

“Then get back to work,” she demands. She puts her her hands on his stomach, trying not to reach for his zipper.

“Yes, ma’am,” he murmurs. He traps her wrists and spins her around so she’s facing the table, then pushes her hard onto it. He yanks her hips back and up so her ass is pointed up. His knees push her thighs apart, the seams of her skirt popping. The table is cold against her breasts and arms, but he doesn’t leave her wanting for long.

He nips her ass and then climbs up behind her. Lining his hot body behind her, he teases her with the hard press of his cock against her ass. Shamefully, she pushes back against him, and he groans.

“Jesus, Joan, don’t do that, or I’m gonna come in my pants.”

The thought has some appeal, especially if it’d humble him.

He crawls back, and pulls her waistband down to mouth the base of her spine.

“Thought about this throughout that fucking massage,” he mutters. He means it as a threat, but the way his mouth moves up her spine, nipping and sucking, is anything but.

When he reaches the top of her spine, he kisses her throat. His hands bracket hers, and his chest is warm against her back. When she tosses her head back, he kisses her right under her jaw, just like she wants him to. She winds her ass against his cock in reward, and he moans loudly. She half-closes her eyes in satisfaction.

“What other fantasies you’ve got for me, Dr. B?” he pants out. “Happy endings are pretty vanilla.”

Her breathing is heavy too, and her thighs are starting to shake.

Yes, she’d thought of creative ways of addressing the Damien problem, but those were daydreams she quickly shuttered away like her dreams of being an astronomer. But now they were all coming out of her, and there wasn’t putting them back in.

“Is this another one of your twenty questions?”

“Dunno, Doc. You feelin less alone yet?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

The angle is awkward. His open mouthed kiss lands mostly on the corner of her mouth, and she desperately wants that kiss. She pushes herself back up, gets her hands on his chest and pushes him back. He falls easily onto the floor, and then it’s her turn to straddle his lap, finally on her terms.

He leans back on his palms, looking like a boy who’s seeing breasts for the first time. He’d only seen her back when she’d removed her bra for the massage. So she unclasps her bra so he can fully appreciate her. His mouth hangs open, and she realizes she can do no wrong with him this eager.

Which of her idle fantasies should she make less idle? Making him eat her out while she wrote up her report on him? Tell him about how she’d dated Owen for the sex while he watched her touch herself? Hooking her fingers into his cheek so his tongue couldn’t speak past them?

Damien slumps back, eyes closed. If this was the result without her even touching him, maybe she should’ve let these daydreams be more prominent in her mind. But then, he probably wouldn’t have used his passive ability if it weren’t for the past week either.

“Holy… Fuck, Joan, I’ve been bad.” His hand circles her thigh, just under her hemline.

“Oh, I know.”

“You gonna do something about it?” he says, looking up from his eyelashes at her.

She shouldn’t be surprised he’s into something like this. Fine, they can both get something out of this.

“What do you think you deserve?”

“Whatever you want. Bite me, spank me, use my ass...”

She hadn’t thought of that one, but she prides herself on being able to handle even the most trying of people with minimal judgment.

“Take your shirt off.”

He quickly shucks it off. She crawls down his body, and presses a kiss the skin just above his loose jeans. His inhale is sharp, and she smiles as she licks over the dark hair at his stomach. She hasn’t tried to leave hickies here before, but the concept is simple.

She leaves a trail of bruises up his belly, and then his chest, a mirror to the ones he’d left on her spine.

He starts rubbing his nipples, but she slaps his hand away. She gives a little lick before nipping it.

“I said bite me, not nibble me to death.”

She looks up at him. Red-faced and wide-pupiled, it’s some kind of funhouse image of the eye contact exercise he’d made her do. She likes him better this way.

She bites the other nipple.

He groans, “ _Harder_. Please. Joan.”

She increases her teeth’s vice grip on his left nipple until he whimpers. Perhaps he was someone who needed pain to make everything clean again. One of her colleagues before she’d join the AM had studied this kind of thing. She wonders if anyone had applied that to the atypical population...

She moves up to his shoulder and clamps down there. She know she can’t do any heavy damage there no matter how hard she bites. His body bucks, and she puts her knee in his soft belly to stop him from moving.

He’s obedient for once, accommodating. And despite how they argue – here, they move perfectly in sync. His body following every gasp and twist of hers, both of them lost in the moment. Hungry mouths, yearning bodies, fire in their breath, and desire hot in their blood.

“Turn over,” she huffs.

He eagerly rolls onto his belly, and she smacks his butt. She reaches beneath him to reach for his button and fly, and he lifts his hips to help her. She pulls his jeans and boxers off in one go, and Damien adjusts himself against the carpet.

“Spank me Dr. B.”

“With pleasure.” She strikes his ass with her hand, a red imprint blooming rapidly across his skin. She shakes her hand out, her palm stinging.

She reaches down to grab his overgrown hair and yank his head back. She shoves her fingers into his mouth.

“Suck.”

His tongue swirls around her fingertips, and once he’s drooling around them, she removes them.

There’s no hesitation in the way she pries his ass open, or how he pushes into her hands. She takes her wet fingers and rubs it against his opening.

“Take it, Robert.”

Her finger presses past the first ring of muscle, but then he says, “No.”

She spanks him again, relishes his sharp inhale.

“I said fucking no.”

She lets him go, and quickly sits back on her heels. Everything she just did starts to coalesce, her brain making sense of it all.

“No,” she whispers. This wasn’t her want at all, this was Damien’s… How much of it had been his?

Damien sits up, wipes his mouth with his arm, and wriggles back into his pants. He’s pulling himself together too, as if this got out of his control as well.

(She doesn’t know how she’ll stop Chloe from reading this. She’ll cross that bridge when she gets there.)

As he zips himself up, and picks his shirt off the floor, she can see the distaste on his face. As if he wants to ignore what happened even though his erection’s visible against his jeans. She’s struck by a vicious desire to wipe it all away by kissing him… but no, that’s not her want.

A frustrated sound escapes her. He angrily strides towards her and stoops down to pull her to her feet, all signs of beautiful acquiescence gone. His ability is hot in her mind, like a fever blocking out all the reasons she should say no.

His hand encircles her neck, but he doesn’t squeeze. But his mouth is an angry thing, like he’s pouring all of his words into it. He bites her throat hard, then chases the pain away by lapping at it with his tongue. The mix of sensations confuses her. But she still moans, clutching his hips, pulling him closer, wanting more.

Grinding his cock against her mound, she tries to tip her hips up so he hits her clit, but no. He finishes sucking his mark on her throat, and then leans into her ear to growl, “You still hungry for this dick all up in that pussy of yours? Oh, no, Joan, I’m not gonna do _anything_ to you until you _beg_ me for it. You call me when you’re out of range and can’t bitch about how I made you do it. When there’s no fucking doubt in your mind how hot I make you, how wet you got for me, that it was all you.”

He digs his finger into her spine, into the bruises he left. She gasps, wanting to chase him for another kiss.

He pulls away at last, and hurriedly grabs his shirt and bomber jacket. When he finally grabs the doorknob, he looks back at her.

“Don’t forget to put your clothes back on.”

Then he slams the door shut behind him.

* * *

She waits fifteen minutes, the longest Damien’s hold has lasted on her, to gather her her clothes and her thoughts. In the end, his words were dripping in disdain, but she can’t get the look on his face out of her mind. Like he hated himself more than he wanted her.

Thinking of her actions earlier in the evening, she still feels a jolt of arousal despite being out of his range of influence.

She doesn’t need these kind of complications, especially when there’s no one to blame but herself.

When she gets home, she’s still wet and can’t think past the pulse between her legs. She wants to take care of it now, thinking she’ll be able to think more clearly once the arousal is out of her system. But she needs to save what dignity she has left, so she waits until she’s in bed.

She pushes her underwear to the side, and slides two finger inside of herself. She’s wet enough it’s easy, and it’s been long enough it feels like a stretch.

Biting her lip, she rubs the inside of her dripping pussy, thinking of him looking up at her as his face is buried in her cunt.

She picks up speed, pressing her palm against her clit. She can hear how slick she is with every thrust. He’d probably love every minute of it, especially if he’d just come inside of her, and she dug her nails hard enough into his scalp that it’d hurt and...

“Damien… unh... _fu..ck_.”

She comes with his name on her lips, her cunt clenching tightly around her fingers.

She lies there, panting. Her thighs damp and her pussy still shuddering.

It’s not just Damien. This feeling is hers too.

Fuck.

### Tuesday, June 28, 2016

She’s tempted to cancel today’s practice, but she doesn’t want to look like she’s frightened from yesterday’s… encounter.

And strangely enough, Damien is true to his word. She expected him to continue _wanting_ her into moments of increasing physical or emotional intimacy. But he demonstrates he’s capable of restraining his ability after all. Despite tossing ripping a piece off her Quizno’s sandwich as if to feed it to her, he doesn’t. Just pops the morsel into his mouth and then tosses the rest of the sandwich at her. He doesn’t make her sit in his lap either, although she can still feel his eyes moving over her body and his fingers flexing.

Damien is still trying to impress her though. His voice sounds richer than usual, and she finds herself having to focus on the words and not just the timbre. The brat even knocks over her papers, and bends at the waist to pick them up, giving her an eyeful of his ass through jeans that actually fit him for once.

He even makes her stay away from him for twelve minutes. Not holding anything of hers hostage, just a challenge to get close to him, but it’s like two poles of a magnet repelling each either.

And because he isn’t rubbing her face in yesterday, she thinks more about it. The way he wanted her so desperately it was an intoxicant, the marks they’d left on each other. And yet, here they were, space wide between them as it should be, but it felt strange.

She suspects that’s his point though.

### Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Damien doesn’t touch her Wednesday either.

Instead, he has her touch her nose. He has her attempt to do the splits, but when she begins to unzip her skirt to accomplish that, he panics and stops. The closest he gets to anything untoward, is wanting her into the variation of scorpion pose she’d been struggling with, for fear of falling onto her face.

He does text her that night. A photo taken in his bathroom mirror, his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, toothpaste foam on his lips. He’s shirtless, and with his pajama pants low on his hips, the hickies she left are obvious.

_thinking of you._

### Friday, July 1, 2016

After typing a text paragraph that’s so long it obscures their (well, mostly Damien’s) previous text messages, Joan calls him.

He grunts.

“...I hope your day off yesterday has been restful.”

“You called me just to ask how I slept? C’mon, Dr. B, you haven’t replied to any of my thirst traps yet, so just spit it out.”

She doesn’t know what a thirst trap is, but she doesn’t want to be distracted from her goal. “I wanted to make sure we’re good.”

She hears movement, like blankets being tossed off, possibly him getting out of bed despite it being 11am.

“Why wouldn’t we be good, Doc?”

Is that how he wants to play it? Of course. He loved making her squirm. “Because I’ve refused to beg you for another… tryst.”

His laughter is loud, and she holds the phone away from her ear. “Is that what they called it back in the day? We weren’t frolicking in a woodland glade or whatever. We were on your office carpet about to fuck.”

“I am well aware.”

He pauses, then says, “You sure you don’t want to remind me of what I have to come back to?”

“What?”

“I’m going into the Big Bad AM’s stronghold to rescue your baby brother. Isn’t this where the damsel gives her knight a token of her affection?”

“Courtly love was predicated upon _not_ consummating the attraction.”

“Boring.”

“And you are not a knight in shining armor.”

“I could be. Isn’t that what I’m doing for you?”

“I’m sure. You aren’t doing this just to help me. You’re doing it because you’re getting something out of it.”

“That’s right. The bruises you left aren’t as dark,” he continues nonchalantly. “I touched them, pressed into them, wishing they’d hurt, and I’d come so hard thinking of you. You sure you don’t wanna leave me with some more? A modern day token for your favorite knight.”

“ _Damien_ ,” she chokes out.

“Did you think of me when you saw the bite marks, the bruises down your spine? I left you those so you didn’t have to cover them up with makeup when you were with your other patients, just a little secret for the two of us under those clothes of yours.”

She’s losing control of this conversation. Is she talking to him as his therapist, a potential conquest, a friend, as an equal?

“You haven’t answered my question. Are we good despite me not falling over myself for the chance to sleep with you?”

“Oh, we’re more than good. This’ll be quick, so you and I can have alone time. I’ll take a lot of pleasure in getting you to beg.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Damien, provided everything goes as planned.”

“Oh, it will.”

### Saturday, July 2, 2016

She should’ve known Damien’s break-in at the AM was going too well. As Owen tells Damien all about Mark’s ability, she realizes her plan is fucked.

“You lied to me, Dr. B, that’s not good.”

“I didn’t lie. I never told you what Mark could do.”

“Not that. Though that could be considered a lie of omission at the very least. No, I mean I told you all I wanted was someone who was like me, so I wouldn’t be lonely, and you sat there, nodding your head, when you knew all along there was someone like me.” The anger in his voice is electric, and she was right. Damien in a rage is a thing to behold, but she has one last card to play.

“I’m begging you, Damien.”

He grows quiet on the line.

“Joan.” His voice a warning, but she burns through it.

“I went home afterwards, and I came more quickly than I have since I was a teenager. I covered up the marks on my neck with concealer, but I touched them when I put it on and took it off at night. I kept thinking what would’ve happened if we’d continued, if you would’ve come like a twelve year-old boy the moment I – ”

He makes a strangled noise. She stops, waiting to see if this will be enough.

“And what about after. Did you think of me?” and his voice teeters between anger and that vulnerability she saw that night.

“And after, too.”

“Oh, Joan. We’ll see how much you mean that. It won’t matter if you think it’s a mistake after, because we’ll both know the score. See you soon.”

The anger is still in his voice, but passion can be channeled in multiple ways.

* * *

The moment Sam is back in 2016 and says it’s worked, Joan speaks.

“Sam, when Damien arrives here with Mark, I need you to take him immediately.”

“Dr. Bright? What’s going on?”

“I know we planned to have Mark convalesce here before your road trip, but you’ll be able to handle it on your own.”

“ _What_? I’m not a medical professional!”

“I’m not a physician either Sam. You’ll have to do this without me.” She puts her hands on Sam’s shoulders. “You’re a brave and intelligent young woman. And from what you’ve told me, my brother loves you. Unlike me, he’s always had wonderful taste in people. _You’re_ wonderful. You’ll do well, you’ll get to everything you’ve wanted to together, catch up on music and movies, take photos, and finally see the world.”

Sam nods, eyes wide and fixed on Joan’s gaze. Joan doesn’t enjoy taking advantage of Sam like this, but time is short, and she wants Sam ready go the moment Damien arrives with Mark.

She also doesn’t want either of them to see what will happen after.

“Don’t tell me where you’re going,” Joan continues. “I can successfully resist Damien, but it’s not a full-proof thing. If he really wants the information, he’ll likely be able to draw it out of me given enough time. I’d caution you against contacting me at all, but I…” She exhales the rest of her breath. “…I still want to hear Mark’s voice, I want to know he, and you, are doing well. Just don’t tell me anything that could trace you, or make any calls from somewhere with the ambient noise could give you away.”

“Dr. Bright,” Sam says, her voice full of dawning horror, “What did you promise him?”

“Nothing I’m unwilling to give.”

Whatever fantasy she’s woven for Sam has vanished with this, but Joan needed to warn her. She won’t have her careful plans ruined, not again. Joan reminds herself what she said about Sam is true. Despite her anxieties, she’s made great steps in their sessions, and her love of Mark might be just the thing she needs.

“I’ll be fine Sam,” she sinks all the reassurance she can into that, and she sees Sam hesitate. “And more importantly, you’ll be fine. There are some lessons that can’t be learned in a therapist’s office, after all. So get ready.”

* * *

A car pulls up to the driveway, a van door slides open, the wheels of their makeshift gurney rattling.

Sam races down, and Joan wants to as well. But she doesn’t.

 _I’d do anything for Mark_ , she’d said. And God help her, she meant it. She’d pushed herself for years to achieve this, found a way through impossible odds before. She can do it again, even if it means spending time with Damien.

 _Remember_ , she tells herself. Remember the reasons you’re doing this, remember who you are, what your core values are.

(Perhaps meditation would be a good way to repel him, the emptying of thoughts giving him less to control, and her more awareness of her thoughts. Or would the emptying of thoughts leave her more prone to him? Researching the pros and cons of various meditations techniques could prove useful.)

Heavy footsteps up the stairs. She grounds her feet to the floor, places her palms against the sides of her thighs, closes her eyes, breathes deeply. She will not look rattled for this meeting. Showing any vulnerability to Damien would be dangerous.

In the grand scheme of things, no, he isn’t the scariest thing she can face, not after herself and her own failings. But, still, she knows arrogance with him would be a sin of the greatest error.

The door opens. She doesn’t turn around to greet him. Instead, she watches the window as a different van pulls out of the driveway, its lights slowly but surely growing more and more distant.

“Well, well, well, Dr. B,” he says.

The touch of his mind is often subtle, but this? This is heavy, like gravity has increased on her bones, and her muscles are tired from bearing the load. And he isn’t in her mind, the presence of it is just on the outskirts, just sparking her neurons, like a large dragon waiting for her just outside her door. She shudders.

 _Time to figure out which of us is the spider, and which is the fly, Dr. B_ , he’d said before it’d gotten so out of control.

 _So find your control again_ , Ellie had told her when she’d showed up at her house, sobbing when Mark had gone missing.

The best way to keep the advantage with Damien – not that she had much of any at this moment – was to keep him off-balance. So she lets down her guard, the careful balance of _me_ and _not-me_ falling away, just leaving the most sacred parts of herself folded into small parts, a small star easily lost in his roaring madness, but just as easily buoyant.

She turns to face him, his face incandescent with anger just waiting to burst like lightning in a storm. She rides the tidal wave of his anger, somehow keeping her legs under her despite his desire to see her on her knees and begging his forgiveness. They still feel like they could collapse like sandcastles. She can’t help but think he looks more beautiful for the danger, and her heart pounds not with fear, but anticipation.

“Hello, Damien.”

God help her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Joan then directs his anger into sex and proceeds to enter a strange Beauty & the Beast dilemma. 
> 
> (P.S. Joan’s passcode spells out BYRON.)


	2. Annotated Playlist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs I listened to as I wrote this.

  1. [Johnny It’s the Last Time](https://soundcloud.com/raveenaloves/johnny-its-the-last-time-1) / Raveena  
A sweet jazzy tune that’s really about a physically abusive relationship. I wanted to open with songs that seemed sweet, but were kinda unsettling upon closer inspection.

  2. [Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QURl7mVgDc) / Florence + the Machine (Live at Abbey Road, 2009)  
_this is a gift, it comes with a price  
_An upbeat jam about human sacrifice.

  3. [Unchained Melody](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiiyq2xrSI0) / Righteous Brothers  
_I’ve hungered for your touch_  
I’ll always associate this song with Vivian Vande Velde’s _Companions of the Night_. Again, a romantic song used in a piece that involves car theft and murder.

  4. [Close to Home](https://viennateng.bandcamp.com/track/close-to-home-3) / Vienna Teng  
_it’s a psalm_ _the book of lies, language we don’t recognize as part of our own_  
I really wanted to use Teng’s Never Look Away for its lyrics, but it didn’t fit sonically. Close to Home fit better in terms of sound. A sleek song driven by piano, but really about body integrity dysphoria.

  5. [Up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWgQ-wiPls4) / James Morrison ft. Jessie J  
_how can I find you / when you’re always hiding from yourself?_ and _  
t_ _he only way is up_

  6. [Lifted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yi_o8iB0b0) / Naughty Boy ft. Emeli Sandé  
_I’ve been lifted, lifted, lifted / devil can’t catch me tonight  
_There’s a sense of exhilaration and unstoppability in the face of danger here. And that’s the way I approached Joan in this story. Someone who loves the thrill and the danger.

  7. [Lovesong](https://sammusmusic.bandcamp.com/track/lovesong-4) / Sammus  
_when the love dies / I won’t have to deal with / a love song that I can’t ever hear / it’s better for me when it all disappears  
_Another upbeat song whose lyrics aren’t upbeat at all.

  8. [I Loves You Porgy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq5A0YadWKs) / Nina Simone

  9. [Say No To This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sB8ITujc3w) / Hamilton Original Broadway Cast  
_show me how to say no to this... how can you say no to this?_  
A little on the nose, but hey. A song about making a Bad Decision but doing it anyway.

  10. [Ove](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2tVKoAhPls)[r](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2tVKoAhPls)[dose](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2tVKoAhPls) / Ciara

  11. [FourFiveSeconds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt0g4dWxEBo) / Rihanna ft. Kanye West & Paul McCartney  
A song about it being Tuesday and you’re already 1000% done with work and about to go off on someone? Sounds like Joan’s sessions with Damien to me.

  12. [Perfect, Dark](https://sammusmusic.bandcamp.com/track/perfect-dark) / Sammus  
There’s a ferocity here that I like. These next few songs are transitions between the “upbeat” pop jams and the mood-driven songs.

  13. [I Lied](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a75XU56BNxc) / Nicki Minaj  
_I lied / to keep you from breaking my heart_  
A song about a failure of honesty and communication in a relationship. Sounds relevant.

  14. [A Face Unforgotten](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGSTJxXCCJg) / Nobuo Uematsu

  15. [Bad Blood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwA96LWwO6E) / Bastille

  16. [Of the Night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-sP7mQCCrY) / Bastille

  17. [Happy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lrkqzESgS4) / Foxes (BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge)  
Instead of a happy song with sad lyrics, a happy song turned inside out to be a moody repudiation of a seemingly happy relationship. Foxes’ cover starts the mood-driven section of this playlist.

  18. [Chamakay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHwO-2Amzs) / Blood Orange

  19. [Retrograde](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYM_c2g6fiY) / James Blake

  20. [Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBjubrl37jE) / Kymberly Kennedy (BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge)  
A little sexy, a little threatening. You don’t treat your woman right? I’m going to steal her out from right under you.

  21. [Pigment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv4YCOYebNk) / H.E.R.  
_the things that I would do to you with just a couple seconds_

  22. [Going (Interlude)](https://youtu.be/hxxcEzM8r-4?t=4) / H.E.R. (NPR Tiny Desk Concert)  
H.E.R.’s Tiny Desk Concert were the last songs I added to this playlist. But despite discovering it late in the writing, they’re also the tracks I listened to the most on repeat.

  23. [Feel a Way](https://youtu.be/hxxcEzM8r-4?t=163) / H.E.R. (NPR Tiny Desk Concert)  
_don’t make me feel a way (don’t make me feel)_

  24. [Hard Place](https://youtu.be/hxxcEzM8r-4?t=407) / H.E.R. (NPR Tiny Desk Concert)

  25. [Focus](https://youtu.be/hxxcEzM8r-4?t=746) / H.E.R. (NPR Tiny Desk Concert)




**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not my first, or my last, Joan/Damien fic! I’ll be posting my Urban Fantasy AU (ft. incubus!Damien) here once it’s complete and I make some edits. If you’d like to read it live, come find me on Tumblr as sweetlyenchains. I’ve also got a couple of other works in the pipeline too.


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